1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an article information printer for printing article information in different forms such as characters, bar codes, and graphics.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a supermarket, an article information printer is used to issue a label indicating article information such as an article code, an article name, and an unit price. At the time of issuing labels, the article information printer performs a print preparation process of producing print image data in a dot matrix based on print data for one page which are transmitted from a host computer as article information, and repeatedly performs a printing process according to the print image data produced in the print preparation process so as to issue a required number of labels.
The print preparation process is started after print data for one page have been received from the host computer. In this process, print data are converted into dot images of characters, bar codes, and graphics, and stored in a frame memory as a print image data. In the printing process, the print image data stored in the frame memory is read in units of dot lines, and a printing head is driven in accordance with each read data.
On the other hand, an article information printer may be connected to an electronic cash register serving as the host computer in order to issue a receipt as the record of a sales transaction. In this case, a cash register prepares print data for each article code entered by an operator in sales registration, and transmits all the print data to the article information printer upon completion of the sales registration.
However, when a receipt is to be issued using the above article information printer, a time between completion of the sales registration and completion of the receipt issuance is considerably long. For this reason, the receipt cannot be quickly handed to a customer.